The present Town Hall (shown above in
about 1905) was opened on 12 May 1897. The section
on the right (now the Museum of Oxford) was Oxford’s
public library until the 1970s.

The main hall is on the first floor and is richly decorated, as the two pictures below show:

In June 1891 the council agreed to spend
a sum of not more than £600 on a design competition
for a new Town Hall for Oxford. Advertisements were
placed in July, with designs to be submitted by 31 October.
Out of over 300 entries, that by Henry Thomas Hare,
a Paris-trained architect, was selected in June 1892:
it was supported vehemently by Alderman Buckell, despite
its expense,

The foundation stone (below)
weighed half a ton and was laid on 6 July 1893
by the Mayor, Thomas Lucas. It stands at the junction
of St Aldate’s and Blue Boar Street and bears the
name of the Mayor and Sheriff of Oxford, and the builder and architect. Originally it had
John S. Chappel of Pimlico as the builder, but he went bankrupt just
three months later and his name was replaced and the
stone relaid. The new builders were a local firm, John
Parnell & Son, who had already built Keble, Mansfield,
and Manchester Colleges in Oxford.

The lending library opened in December
1895 and the reference library in February 1896. On
12 May 1897 the Town Hall itself was opened by the Prince
of Wales (later King Edward VII). The total cost
of the project came to £94,116, far more than
the original estimate of £50,000. Alderman Underhill
for the Conservatives predicted that it would be 55 years
before the building” ceased to be an incubus on the
ratepayers”.

Left: Entrance to the former Law Court in Blue Boar Street. The Latin motto reads: “Discite iustitiam moniti” (Learn the justice of watchfulness, from Virgil, Aeneid, VI: 60)

Right: Entrance to the former public library, on the corner of St Aldate’s and Blue Boar Street (now the Museum of Oxford). The motto reads: “Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for abilities” (from Francis Bacon’s Essay Of Studies)

Left: There is a balcony over the main entrance from which the results of parliamentary elections are traditionally announced.

This postcard shows the result of the General Election of 1906 when Lord Valentia (Conservative MP for Oxford 1895–1917) won by just a hundred votes